The time is early April 1933: To the costermongers of Covent Garden -- sellers of fruits and vegetables with horse-drawn carts on the streets of London - Eddie Pettit was a gentle soul with a near-magical gift for working with horses. When Eddie is killed in an especially violent accident, the grieving costers are deeply skeptical about the cause of his death. Who would want to kill Eddie -- and why?
Maisie Dobbs' father, Frankie, had been a costermonger, so she had known the men since childhood. She remembers Eddie fondly and is determined to offer her help. But it soon becomes clear that powerful political and financial forces are equally determined to prevent her from learning the truth behind Eddie's death. Plunging into the investigation, Maisie begins her search for answers on the working-class streets of Lambeth where Eddie had lived and where she had grown up.
The inquiry quickly leads her to a callous press baron; a has-been politician named Winston Churchill, lingering in the hinterlands of power; and, most surprisingly, to Douglas Partridge, the husband of her dearest friend, Priscilla. As Maisie uncovers lies and manipulation on a national scale, she must decide whether to risk it all to see justice done.
368 pages
In this mystery, the psychologist/investigator, Miss Maisie Dobbs must dig deep into a village's long-buried
secrets. The adult son of Maisie's benefactors, Lord and Lady Compton, tycoon James Compton, wants to buy an
estate in the bucolic hamlet of Heronsdene, but is wary after a string
of mysterious fires. Maisie soon proves Compton's suspicions correct
when she encounters the shady current landowner and a vaguely menacing
band of Romas (Gypsies) in town for the seasonal harvest. The locals are also
curiously tight-lipped about Heronsdene's wartime tragedy, when a
zeppelin raid wiped out a family. Teasing out Heronsdene's secrets will
take all the intrepid former nurse's psychological skills and test her
ability to navigate between the Roma and gorja (non-Roma)
worlds. Winspear vividly evokes England between the wars, when the old
order crumbled and new horizons beckoned working women like her
appealing heroine.
London, 1931. The night before an exhibition of his artwork opens at a
famed Mayfair gallery, the controversial artist Nick Bassington-Hope somehow
falls to his death. The police rule it an accident, but Nick's twin
sister, Georgina, isn't so sure, so she calls on Maisie Dobbs, psychologist and investigator. It isn't long before the
evidence surrounding Nick's death leads Maisie to the beaches of
Dungeness in Kent and the underbelly of London's art world, in another
confrontation with the perilous legacy of the Great War.
A deathbed plea from his wife leads Sir Cecil Lawton to seek the aid of
Maisie Dobbs, psychologist and investigator. As Maisie soon learns,
Agnes Lawton never accepted that her aviator son was killed in the Great
War, a torment that led her not only to the edge of madness but to the
doors of those who practice the dark arts and commune with the spirit
world. In accepting the assignment, Maisie finds her spiritual strength
tested, as well as her regard for her mentor, Maurice Blanche. The
mission also brings her together once again with her college friend
Priscilla Evernden, who served in France and who lost three brothers to
the war, one of whom, it turns out, had an intriguing connection to the
missing Ralph Lawton.
Somehow I began this series with the second book, but one of the best features of the series is each book's ability to stand on its own. Maisie is an intelligent, clever woman working as a private investigator and psychologist in and around London, during the period between the world wars. Her background makes her uniquely suited for the work; she began life under the stairs as a serving girl in a great house in London. However, starved for knowledge, she would sneak up into the grand library and spend her nights reading, which came to the attention of her employer, suffragette Lady Rowan Compton. She became Maisie's patron, taking the remarkably bright youngster under her
wing. Lady Rowan's friend, Maurice Blanche, often retained as an
investigator by the European elite, recognized Maisie’s intuitive gifts
and helped her earn admission to the prestigious Girton College in
Cambridge, where Maisie planned to complete her education. But when the first World War broke out, she lied about her age and went to the front as a nurse. The station where she worked was destroyed by artillery fire leaving her injured and the doctor she had fallen in love with, a shell of a man. The writer is vague about his injuries, but he remains in hospital the rest of his life, unable to speak. Maisie returned to her studies and an apprenticeship with Maurice Blanche, which explains how she came to her career as an investigator with profiling skills.
This delightful novel, by the author of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand is filled with the colorful characters of a small, English village on the verge and at the beginning of World War I. The plot centers on a young woman who has moved there to teach Latin and the well-to-do family who sponsored her employment. The family just happens to include a handsome nephew who is down from his medical studies in London. But as interesting as the characters are, it is the overall action of English country life, which is forced to change significantly as the reality of war sets in. The changes the war brings are large and small, and Ms. Simonson deftly captures all.
